Turning News Into Knowledge

At this point, you know the story: the markets are down. Way down.

Concerns among skittish investors about European sovereign debt, the recent U.S. credit rating downgrade and the long-term health of the U.S. economy seem to be everywhere, along with worries about the potential of a “double-dip” recession horsewhipping the past two years of  gains into oblivion.

Real-time social sites such as Twitter can often contribute to – or even help predict – downswings or even upswings in the market, thanks to the knee-jerk  nature of the technology and, some would argue, its users. Indeed, Some studies have showed that Twitter can help researchers predict the outcome of a typical day on Wall Street.

But not everyone seems panicked over today’s financial bloodletting, at least if their tweets mean anything.

Thanks to MediaMiser’s Twitter monitoring and analysis tool, we’ve pulled in the past 24 hours of anxious gallows humour that played out on the social networking site.

Here’s a sample:
@GetPortfoly #WallStreet is on the cover of every newspaper and will be the topic of every party you attend this weekend. Especially the S&P downgrade. (Aug. 7, 2:02 p.m.)

 @Kmili3 I’m not the only one scared of the ugly day tomorrow right? #WallStreet (August 7, 7:55 p.m.)

@TheBunkerKing Bracing for what #tommorow might bring to #Wallstreet. This might get #interesting!#Terrified #Crisis (Aug. 7, 11:59 p.m.)

@cgpoirier waiting for the opening bell on wall street…gonna take bets on how long it takes traders to curl into a small ball and cry.. #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 8:08 a.m.)

@cgpoirier ..huh, that took about 50 seconds… (Aug. 8, 9:28 a.m.)

@jordanmmichael #markets are taking a worse beating then after I dinged my first car (Aug. 8, 10:46 a.m.)

@bjm1031 #wallstreet freaking out – insanely rich worried their Neiman Marcus personal shoppers jobs’ at risk (Aug. 8, 10:53 a.m.)

@mmarksshihWho peed in S&P’s cheerios? #wallstreet #downgrade (Aug. 8, 10:53 a.m.)

@GiuseppeNorris The only person making money on #WallStreet right now is the Dramamine vendor. (Aug. 8, 11:17 a.m.)

@yclphotoWow, there is a lot of red on my stock ticker today #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 11:24 a.m.)

 @KeithKing That giant sucking sound coming from Wall Street is any chance of my ever retiring going down the drain. #wallstreet #creditrating (Aug. 8, 12:01 p.m.)

 @purtheil Tank tops are very fashionable on Wall Street these past days. #finance #wallstreet (Aug. 8, 12:38 p.m.)

@tsmelleyI have stoves, water purification, backcountry survival tools, anything you need to go off grid #stocks #dow #meltdown (Aug. 8, 3:08 p.m.)

 @PhilBridgesWhat a day, when a 400-point drop begins to seem like a “good” thing (vs. a 500-point drop). Whoa. #dropoff #stocks #standardandpoors #sell (Aug. 8, 3:26 p.m.)

@AdamKesslerLTD I think the kids in #Washington need to get with the kids on #Wallstreet and do a mad crazy intense #yoga session. #everyonerelax #namaste (Aug. 8, 3:29 p.m.)

I recently had the opportunity to attend my first Girl Geek Dinners Ottawa event along with colleagues Stephanie Luedee, Peggy Prahl and Jennifer White. This month, Girl Geek Dinners partnered with C’est Bon Cooking for a guided food tour of Ottawa’s Byward Market – lucky me!

We started off at Murray’s Market on Dalhousie Street for a quick meet & greet. Owner and operator Paddy Whelan welcomed our group with a variety of artisan cheeses, yummy bread and charcuterie, all sourced from local farms. We learned about the market’s “nose-to-tail” philosophy in support of sustainable farming. A few more minutes of mingling and sampling was all it took to polish off these tasty plates.

Next our tour guide Paola St-Georges, of C’est Bon Cooking, provided us each with a bag of gourmet granola from locally owned Siren Bakery to munch on as we moved on. Our tour continued to the Tea Store where we glimpsed of their collection of over 300 loose-leaf teas.

No food tour would be complete, though, without a stop at La Bottega Nicastro, truly an Ottawa classic. Did you know that the Byward Market location goes through an entire wheel of Parmesan per day? This is something I could only really appreciate once I saw how truly massive a wheel of Parmesan is – at a cool 90 lbs., definitely no slouch in the girth department.

We then made our way past the outdoor farmer stalls in the heart of the market. Although the stalls were closed for the day, our guides provided us with a great summary of the Savour Ottawa program, which identifies local produce. We also got to taste some local fruits, veggies and cheeses.

I was so enjoying myself learning about this city – one I thought I knew inside-out – that I didn’t realize it was after 8:00 p.m. when we arrived at our last stop, The Cupcake Lounge. As if this evening wasn’t delicious enough, we got to finish it off with these little handmade gems, crafted without artificial flavours or colours. It goes without saying that the cupcakes here are as appealing to the eye as they are to eat.

Being born and raised in Ottawa, I wasn’t initially sure how much I’d learn from a food tour in my hometown. But I was happily surprised when I walked away with not only a full belly, but a newfound appreciation for the evolution of Ottawa’s food scene and movement towards shopping and dining locally.

Check out some pics courtesy of Simon Chen.

Twitter users – and, it would seem, large contingents of foreign media - are already all in a tizzy over the upcoming Royal visit to Canada by Will and Kate, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge. And why not? It’s not every year a celebrity couple touches down in places like Ottawa and the north shore of Prince Edward Island.

So we at MediaMiser thought it would be fun to track what those tweeters are saying, using the hashtags #royalvisit, #willandkate and #royaltour. Check it out!

June 28, 2011′s top Royal Visit tweeters, by volume: @WillandKateCD, @Globaltvnews and @mel_coulson

Top links, by number of tweets:

Ottawa Citizen’s Royal Visit page

Canada.com: Royal visit a chance to show off Canadian culture, cliches and all

Globalnews.ca: Canadian love story rivals royal romance

@PhotoJVideoJ

#Ottawa already a zoo for #royalvisit. NBC already has microwave truck and broadcasting.

@SusanDelacourt

RT @louisataylorCIT: Find your #Ottawa royal-spotting spots in today’s@OttawaCitizen or on our #royalvisit site: http://bit.ly/jfljZz #katemiddleton

@ChrisJai

Has already started to see American media trucks in various Ottawa parking lots for the Royal visit #royalvisit #ottawa #news

@DrumAssign

Foreign media is starting to arrive in #ottawa for the #royalvisit. @jaimiek and Sandra Abma are catching up with them. #ottnews

@AyaMcMillan

Just booked my @VIA_Rail tix for Ottawa a day early – evidently every seat was snagged for the #royalvisit

@OttawaCitizen

We  have a big day here today – live blog on the #lansdowne hearings (day 6) continues, and of course there’s the #royalvisit

@NahayatT

Ottawa today – let the #RoyalTour begin! #WillAndKate

@RichardMadan

#RCMP says Musical Ride Horses in top shape for #RoyalVisit, unlike last year they had bad case of Strangles on Jul 1.

@PaulRushforthRE

Anyone else as excited as my family is? RT @OttawaCitizen: Good morning! #royalvisit preview section http://deck.ly/~sPvBo

@DaveCHale

Had a fun interview with Rebecca at #GlobalNews about the #RoyalVisit marketing strategy this afternoon

@GlobalMaritimes

If you’re headed to #PEI and have absolutely no interest in the #royalvisit check out these tips to avoid the #royals http://ow.ly/5spQq

It probably shouldn’t come as a surprise that when a group of razor-sharp communicators are tossed into a room, communication – and lots of it – generally ensues.

Such was the case at this year’s IABC World Conference in beautiful, beachy San Diego. The busy communicators both in attendance and following along in other locales from their laptops, tablets and other devices set Twitter alight before, during and after the assemblage of June 12 to 15.

Lindsay Polak, Brett Serjeantson and Tara Lalanne of MediaMiser.

Being a social and traditional media monitoring and analytics company, we used our software to track the conference’s voluminous Twitter activity over the past couple of weeks.

Curious as to what we found?

Read on to find out.

Just how many tweets were there?

MediaMiser collected 5,197 IABC World Conference-related tweets from June 1 to June 18. However, more than 50 per cent of all tweets (2,667) were collected June 13 and 14, the two busiest conference days. By June 17, activity had dwindled to around 60 tweets per day.

Who were the most active tweeters?

Other than the official Twitter accounts of IABC (131 tweets) and IABC Phoenix (218 tweets), the top 25 posters on Twitter were individuals – and the top individual Tweeter, it turned out, was from MediaMiser’s hometown of Ottawa. Basia Vanderveen (@BasiaV), an IABC-accredited communications strategist who works in the dentistry industry, led the pack with 180 tweets during MediaMiser’s 18-day analysis.

She was followed by Burbank, Calif.-based Christopher Swan (@mechristopher) with 123 tweets, Oakville, Ont.’s Donna Papacosta (@DonnaPapacosta) with 116, Indianapolis-based Chuck Gose (@chuckgose) with 111 and Salt Lake City’s Erin Hallmark (@erinhallmark) with 102.

Out of the top 25 tweeters who were individuals, eight (nearly 35 per cent) were from Canada.

Who had the most followers?

The only top tweeter measured by both posts and following was the official IABC Twitter account (@IABC), which recorded the third-highest number of tweets and had the 10^th-highest number of followers of all tweeters with 10,565.

London, U.K.-based social media coach and trainer Barbara Gibson (@Barb_G) had the highest number of followers of all tweeters, with 19,779, and Austin, TX-based Aaron Strout (@AaronStrout) was second with 17,053 followers.

Who was mentioned the most?

At nearly 400 mentions and retweets, @IABC was the most mentioned Twitter handle during the study period. Conversely, at more than 200 retweets and mentions, Shel Holtz (@shelholtz) of Holtz Communications + Technology, an IABC fellow and panelist at the conference, was the highest-mentioned individual.

Oy, mate – which tweeter flew the farthest?

If we eastern Canadians thought we had a long flight home, we were sadly mistaken. In fact, Linda Johannesson (@abroadabroadeh) was the most far-flung of IABC 2011’s Twitterati, having slogged all the way from Sydney, Australia.

Honourary mention goes to Daniel Munslow (@munslowd), hailing from Johannesburg, South Africa.

What were the top mentioned hashtags?

You’re likely going to say “I told you so”, but #IABC11 was the most-used hashtag during the conference, garnering more than 5,100 mentions.

All other related tags were dwarfed by the sheer volume of #IABC11’s mentions – but that didn’t stop the #mediamiser hashtag from placing fourth, with 92 mentions during the period.

What were the most Tweeted web links?

The IABC website’s general information page was the most Tweeted link (14 tweets), followed by the IABC website’s news release section (13 tweets).

When did the analysis take place?

MediaMiser analyzed IABC World Conference-related tweets from June 1 to 18. The conference was held June 12 to 15, with June 13 and 14 being the peak conference days (these days also recorded the highest number of tweets – 1,462 and 1,205, respectively).

We had a great time at this year’s conference, and are anxiously looking forward to next year’s production in Chicago! Well done IABC for putting on such a great – and, apparently, much talked about – event.

Dave Carroll has a message for customer service representatives everywhere – and this time, it’s not even in video form.

Yes, the mastermind behind 2009’s series of staggeringly successful United Breaks Guitars videos – his first video, a protest against United Airlines for allegedly breaking his Taylor guitar – has garnered nearly 10.5 million views on YouTube – has recently taken his show on the road. He’ll be presenting at the CPRS national conference in Saint John, N.B. this June on how those in customer service, PR and marketing can harness the power of social media (MediaMiser reps will be there too!).

Indeed, the success of Mr. Carroll’s uncontrolled video experiment has led many companies and academic institutions – including MediaMiser, which released its report in August 2009 – to actively evaluate its effects on the social media landscape. In fact, Mr. Carroll says there have been over 100 reports penned on the topic since the summer of 2009.

We caught up with Mr. Carroll recently for a brief Q&A session on his social media philosophy, and how his life has changed since his video protest went viral.

MM: What will you be speaking about at this year’s CPRS national conference?

CARROLL: Most people will be expecting to hear the background of United Breaks Guitars and the implications surrounding it, because it’s really become a story with a lot of different elements to it – customer service, social media, branding, and so on. But with that particular audience, I’ll tailor my message to the public relations world and how social media can be used more effectively by companies today. It’s not about creating one message for the masses anymore – it’s about creating a two-way conversation.

MM: Did the wildly popular United Breaks Guitars videos, and ensuing social media frenzy, change your life at all?

CARROLL: United Breaks Guitars was at the height of its popularity in July and August of 2009, but it’s still evolving and opportunities are still manifesting themselves from it. I’m writing a book now. I’ve been offered record contracts because of this. I’m doing other music videos for other companies. My career has exploded in all different directions, and it’s really based on this video that I made.

So I’ve been trying to address this while also trying to make sense of it. It’s been estimated that around 150 million people have viewed that video or at least heard the story. And I think that fact has huge implications for how PR people can interact with customers, and how businesses can use social media to interact with the public.

MM: Did you ever expect the videos to take off the way they did?

CARROLL: I did have a strong sense that people would be interested. My goal was to get a million views, with all three videos combined, within one year (Mr. Carroll’s first video alone has now racked up nearly 10.5 million views). My criteria, really, was to make a video that looked good, sounded good and made people tell their friends about it.

I didn’t really have any expectations, but I thought if it got some momentum, it might give some companies an impetus to change the way they do things. And through doing the video, I really regained the power that I’d lost when I was in that customer service maze.

MM: How does it feel to have something go viral like that? A bit surreal?

CARROLL: It was pretty overwhelming in the first few weeks, yeah. Because of the authentic nature of United Breaks Guitars, there wasn’t really a master plan or anything. My whole social media strategy was putting it up on YouTube – so in the first few days, when we were pressed for calls and swamped with interview requests from around the world, we weren’t really prepared for it. I made a conscious effort to be myself, be authentic and not take credit for things I didn’t deserve. And the one thing I also did was that I made myself available for any interview requested, from the smallest papers in northern Ontario to large media outlets like CNN.

MM: How did the entire experience change your view of the power of social and traditional media?

CARROLL: It amplified it exponentially, and as an independent musician…  I’d been waiting for these times to be here for the better part of my career. And in the last hundred years there has been a million-dollar music industry that has emerged, but the irony is that industry is often an impediment to musicians who want to be heard.

But social media allows the cream to rise to the top, if you have good content. It democratizes the music industry. People who would like to be full time musicians, they can have a career now much easier than they could before. Justin Bieber is a good example of someone who lucked out that way, and now he’s got that whole music industry machine behind him (Mr. Bieber was discovered on YouTube and is now signed to record label Island Def Jam). But when it happened to me I was independent, and I’m still independent, and I think this is why customer service people are so interested in my story.

MM: What other PR, marketing and customer service lessons can be drawn from United Breaks Guitars?

CARROLL: One of the key themes is this idea that music brings us together as people. It’s a great way to cut through culture and language, and United Breaks Guitars is a great example of this. I’m really jazzed about this idea that we’re all connected at the deeper levels, and this is an example of that. The videos resonated with people because of that – on the surface, we’re stuck in the day-to-day, fast-paced world, and we convince ourselves that we’re separate. But these videos, really, proves that we all have more in common then we might think.

This has implications for customer service… because when you start thinking this way you’re operating from the perspective of connection, rather than separation.

www.davecarrollmusic.com

The only prediction I will make regarding tonight’s federal contest is that while there will be some winners, there will be mostly losers – and this goes beyond the politicians.

Many pollsters and pundits, as well, are staking their reputations on tonight’s outcome.

The 2006 Canadian federal election essentially made Nanos Research what it is, after Nik Nanos accurately predicted a conservative minority. But the game has changed.

Tonight could also be very historic. If the polls are right, for the first time the NDP may be in opposition – might even have an outside chance of forming a government. Recently, EKOS research tabulated a three-point difference between the Conservatives and NDP. But other pollsters, such as Nanos, have a bit wider spread.

But what role have phenomena such as vote mobs played, and has social media had an effect?

At the beginning of the campaign activity on Twitter and other social was predictable. Early on Mark Blevis wrote an article in the Ottawa Citizen, stating that this was “not the Twitter Election”:

Anecdotally, the political discussion on Twitter is still taking place within an echo chamber. That is, most of the political discussions involve journalists, pundits, interest groups, the politically engaged, and – yes – even politicians. The average Canadian? Not so much.

Personally, I agree with him. But there also seems to be a major call to action for political change on Twitter, leaning heavily in the NDP’s favour.

By far, the most linked web page over the last two days (1000-plus links so far) is an open letter by Jack Layton urging people to vote NDP and vote for change – essentially a call to action. However, as Mr. Blevis wrote, it’s bouncing around in that “echo chamber” we talked about.

How many opinions are really being changed? Or is it instead helping to engage a demographic predisposed to voting NDP, but not necessarily predisposed to voting in general? If that’s the case, Twitter and other social media is more of a call to action – much like vote mobs.

Or maybe social media is encouraging other, already politically engaged people to engage others.

No one knows for sure. Most do believe vote mobs have had an effect – but for which party? The Liberals were polling ahead of the NDP at the height of the vote mobs’ popularity.

Also, we know that media does have an effect on behaviour and at last count, 31 publications had endorsed the Conservatives and only two the NDP. Yet overwhelmingly, social media has been pro-NDP according to our data.

All I know is I would hate to be a pollster right now. It seems this is a high-stakes game of predictions, with everyone doubling down on their reputations.

Regardless, there will be a lot to learn from this election and MediaMiser is happy to sit back with its data and analyze the tea leaves after the dust settles, and along the way. This is what motivated us to set up the MediaMiser Twitter Publication Elections counter – we’ve learned a great deal already through trial, error and experimentation with the collected data.

That said, to all candidates good luck and to all eligible citizens, get the vote out.

Health care and the issue of getting out the youth vote turned front and centre over the past six days of election talk on Twitter, according to MediaMiser’s most recent Issues Index.

The issue of students and young people, in particular, rose over the past few days thanks to media coverage of an unauthorized ballot-casting exercise at the University of Guelph. Fueled by this event and the frenzy of interest that ensued, mentions of keywords related to the issue spiked 214.5 per cent from April 12 to April 15.

By late April 18, however, chatter on the issue had decreased nearly 60 per cent. But it was still the second most-popular issue tweeted during the past week as of 11 p.m. Monday evening.

Health care, the public’s number-one issue in this Issues Index, also received a recent boost in Twitter interest – most likely due to Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s pledge on Sunday to hold a national health care summit if elected.

Interest in health care on Twitter has trended quickly upward since then, with popularity surging 52.3 per cent since late Saturday.

The top two issues of the April 14 Issues Index, ethics/accountability and the economy, stayed strong and among the top five issues of Canadians tweeting about the election but did lose some steam.

As of the end of April 18, ethics and accountability had dropped 84.8 per cent from its April 11 high at the time of the leaked Auditor-General’s report of G8 spending. The issue of the economy and jobs, as well, dropped to middling status, sinking 25 per cent in popularity since Saturday.

The issue of democracy and democratic values, as well, has dropped by more than 44 per cent in the past two days. The issue had received a spike in popularity thanks to the related news item of the University of Guelph polling station and the right of such unauthorized polling stations to collect ballots.

Other issues such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, crime and prisons, campaign advertising, the coalition and the environment had each trended out of the top five as of 11 p.m. on Monday.

The MediaMiser analysis is comprised of a sample of Canadian federal election-related tweets as defined by keywords, and the hashtags #elxn41 and #cdnpoli, and was conducted using the company’s patented monitoring and analysis software.

Check out last week’s Issues Index here.

Issues trend meter

HOT: Student voting, health care

NOT: Crime and prisons, environment

When Boston Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara slammed Montreal Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty into the edge of the Bell Centre’s glass divider on March 8, 2011, he did more than injure a well-known fellow hockey player.

He also reignited a long-running controversy in the NHL – namely, that of blows to the head and just what on earth the league should do about them. Enter the latest questionable hit by Vancouver Canucks forward Raffi Torres, which occurred in a game on April 17, and the NHL headshots debate has once again flared up.

Which is why we at MediaMiser figured it would be a great day to release our latest social media report, entitled “The NHL headshots issue: A social media and online news analysis”.

In the report (which analyzed  Twitter, Facebook and online news activity from March 12 to March 27), we look at which news events, news outlets, journalists and other tweeters drove the headshots debate in March.

Here’s a brief breakdown of some of the report’s findings:

The incident to cause the most social media and online media activity was the Matt Cooke hit on New York Rangers defenceman Ryan McDonagh, and subsequent suspension.

The journalist that wrote on headshots the most: Joe Yerdon, NBC Sports

The Canadian journalist that wrote on headshots the most: Damien Cox, Toronto Star

The Canadian media outlet that wrote on headshots the most: Ottawa Sun

Some of the most prolific Twitter users in regard to NHL headshots: @NHLSpies, Greg Wyshynski (writer for Puck Daddy on Yahoo! Sports), Dave Stubbs (Montreal Gazette), Renaud Lavoie (RDS) and Jeff Marek (CBC)

The Twitter user to have his post retweeted the most: George Stromboulopoulos (CBC)

Click here for the full report.

According to MediaMiser’s first Issues Index for the 2011 Canadian federal election, ethics and accountability holds a slim lead as Twitter’s most talked-about election issue.

Several issues trended up and down in the aftermath of this week’s French and English leaders’ debates. But concern on the subject of ethics and accountability spiked dramatically around April 11 – jumping in volume by 845 per cent – when news broke of the pending Auditor General’s G8-G20 spending report.

And though that issue has trended downward since peaking that day, dropping 70.8 per cent by April 12 and another 66 per cent from April 12 to 13, it was still garnering hundreds of tweets per day by April 13.

The data – collected and analyzed by MediaMiser’s patented media monitoring and analysis software – indicates that between April 3 and 10:30 p.m. on April 13, chatter centering on the economy, jobs and economic issues was a solid second in terms of election issue-related tweets.

Indeed, tweets focused on the election and the economy increased 310 per cent since April 6 to propel that issue into second place. Earlier in the study period, the economy had sat below the issue of democracy and democratic values within Canadian society.

The concept of democracy and democratic values is the third most-talked about issue, according to MediaMiser’s analysis, though the issue trended slightly downward (by 18 per cent) since April 12.

Health care and health care-related issues sit in fourth spot, more or less unchanged from April 12 but up considerably from the day before. Health care’s real spike on Twitter came on April 8, when it jumped 152.5 per cent on the same day the Conservative Party of Canada released its election platform.

Crime and prisons, a hot-button issue in the lead-up to the election, rounds out the top five but was apparently losing steam by the evening of April 13.

Issues such as the environment, the coalition, leadership and character, Afghanistan and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter purchase currently sit out of the top 10 as of the evening of April 13.

The MediaMiser analysis is comprised of a sample of Canadian federal election-related tweets as defined by keywords, and the hashtags #elxn41 and #cdnpoli.

MediaMiser issues trend meter:

HOT: Ethics, economy

NOT: Afghanistan, F-35 Joint Strike Fighter

Dave Fleet is often referred to as a guy with his feet planted firmly at “the intersection of communications, marketing and social media.”

Strong words, those, but if his career’s recent upward trajectory means anything, it’s an apt portrayal indeed – the self-described “Brit-nadian” and bookworm is rising fast as a go-to name in the ever-expanding world of social media. If you don’t believe us, just check out his rabid Twitter following (Nice background photo on his page, too – kind of reminds us of Glenveigh National Park in Ireland).

At any rate, we were delighted to discover the former vice-president at Thornley Fallis Inc., now vice-president of digital at communications firm Edelman‘s Toronto office, returns to O-town this week to drop some knowledge on attendees of Social Media Breakfast Ottawa 22. It’s a regular meetup at the Irving Greenberg Theatre Centre aimed at those hoping to boost or solidify their social media street cred.

We gave Mr. Fleet a ring at his Toronto office last Monday, hoping to speak to an assistant and book some time with him later in the week.

But not only was he available, he also was ready and willing to execute a brisk Q&A on his upcoming presentation, his evolving social media philosophy and new (ish) gig in the Big Smoke.

I guess social media is all about having conversations, after all.

Dave Fleet, vice-president of digital at Edelman.

MM: Without giving too much away, what can attendees of this Wednesday morning’s event expect to hear?

FLEET: The presentation will be focused around some of the high-level trends we see on a day-to-day basis in social media. It’ll cover a broad variety of these trends, and will also give recommendations on each of them – with the hope being that everyone in attendance finds a couple of actionable items they can take away. And that’s whether you work in government, the private sector or in a not-for-profit capacity.

MM: Can you give some examples of these kinds of trends?

FLEET: Sure, I can give you two examples. The first is the integration that’s required to work effectively within social media. Because this really lies at the edge of what many organizations are used to bundling into silos – earned media, advertising, marketing, and other departments within an organization.

But in regard to an effective social media strategy, people in all these areas have to work together. It’s no longer cleanly divided into departments. So there’s a need for organizations to know how to staff that, and how to execute this type of strategy.

The second is the need for businesses to think outside the campaign. Call it ‘the death of the campaign.’ You need to think beyond just quarterly ad budgets, product launches and promotions. To be effective you need to focus on ongoing engagement to build that engagement over time.

I think these are definitely trends, not sudden spikes. But we’re also seeing an increased understanding from companies in this regard… you used to see a lot of companies launching Facebook pages for campaigns, and then killing them at the end of the campaign. But you’re seeing more broad strategies now. Is everyone there yet? No. But are we seeing a trend? Absolutely.

MM: Has social media, as a business space, matured? Or does it still have some growing up to do?

FLEET: I think social media as an overall industry is going through a maturation stage now, and right now we’re seeing the rise of the less shiny object – we used to see people saying ‘get me a Facebook page.’ But now we’re seeing people tune into the importance of monitoring, of crisis management and that sort of thing. These are things that aren’t necessarily shiny and new, but that are very important to the overall operations of a company.

MM: How have governmental organizations dealt with the trends you spoke of earlier?

FLEET: In the public sector you’re dealing with similar challenges to the private sector, but also another layer of challenges which provides some extra pieces to think about – especially when it comes to partisan and non-partisan staff, approvals processes, that sort of thing. And I think government is still in the early days of this kind of adoption, really. There have been some pioneers with the government wiki, and the (Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada) was out there early with a blog. But overall, it’s still early days.

MM: Describe your role at Edelman – just what is a vice-president of digital, anyhow?

FLEET: Our Toronto team has grown to about 20 digital specialists, and we have probably one of the largest digital teams in the country. So my job entails coordinating the activities of these folks, who are operating in several verticals – technology, health care, you name it. I’m lucky to work with a lot of people who are smarter than me, and so I set the course and get out of the way and let them be brilliant.

WHO? Dave Fleet, vice-president of digital at Edelman Toronto

WHAT? Social Media Breakfast 22

WHEN? Wednesday, April 6, 2011 from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m.

WHERE? Irving Greenberg Theatre, at the corner of Wellington West and Holland

Register at: http://smbottawa22.eventbrite.com